The twin suicide bombings in Algeria's capital that took at least 37 lives last week have given the enigmatic militant group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb a sharp burst of publicity. But experts say the reality is more complex than the propaganda or media reports depicting an overwhelming and ubiquitous menace. In fact, the Algerian military has recently inflicted damage on the group, chopping away at its rural strongholds and capturing or slaying leaders, experts say.

Group C: UNITED STATES VS. ALGERIA Where: Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria. Time: 7 a.m. PDT. TV: ESPN, ESPN Deportes, Univision. Radio: Sirius/XM, KLYY-FM 97.5 and KDLD-FM 103.1. The buzz: When the U.S. was knocked out of Germany '06, it was an African team, Ghana, that did the damage. Algeria will try to duplicate the feat, but Algeria is a few rungs lower on the FIFA rankings than Ghana was four years ago. Even so, the game appears to be a tossup.

Algerian Islamic militants killed 14 people and burned their bodies after stopping their vehicles at a bogus roadblock, local authorities said Friday. The killings took place late Thursday near the town of Larba, about 25 miles south of central Algiers, the authorities said. Army troops were hunting the attackers, who were suspected to be from the Al Qaeda-aligned Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

The death toll in Algeria's worst earthquake in two decades rose past 1,000 on Thursday as rescue workers battled time and debris to save lives and foreign governments and relief agencies rushed aid to the scene. "We are dealing with a real catastrophe," Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said on Algerian state radio. "It's a tragic moment. It's a misfortune that hits the whole of Algeria." Authorities said they had counted 1,092 dead and 6,782 injured as a result Wednesday's magnitude 6.

Islamic extremists freed 14 European tourists Monday, six months after they were kidnapped by an Islamic militant group in the Sahara Desert. The negotiated release ended an ordeal that began in southern Algeria, where the militants snatched a total of 32 tourists making desert safaris without guides. After some of the tourists were freed in a raid, the militants fled with their remaining captives into neighboring Mali.

They killed two of her three brothers and her mother, a pious 55-year-old who made her living packing eggs into cartons. Now, the killers want Houria Zaidat too. The death threat came signed in blood. The message, scrawled in pencil, explained why the 23-year-old woman from Algiers' working-class suburb of Harraga, barely 5-foot-3 but the country's female judo champion since 1992, could no longer be allowed to live. "Death to those women who do not wear the veil," it said.

It was sweet to be an American on that hot afternoon beneath the palms. For the 90 minutes when the U.S. soccer team recently played Algeria in the World Cup, two Americans in a Cairo cafe received thumbs up and smiles. Not because they were particularly endearing, but at that moment their team was on its way to defeating Egypt's archrival, a nemesis whose mention draws clenched teeth and bitterness. Algeria had months earlier knocked Egypt out during the World Cup qualifiers, so it was only natural that the Egyptians, who on most days aren't enamored with the U.S., would cheer for an American victory in South Africa.

ALGERIA * Algeria's security forces bombed a hide-out of the radical Armed Islamic Group and killed 15 of its members, including its new leader, local media reported. Rachid Abou Tourab and 14 associates were reportedly killed Sunday by the army in a forest 28 miles south of the capital, Algiers, according to Le Matin newspaper, which cited sources in Algeria's security service.